While I traveled, the cornices were mostly added with just the gutters to add. In the terminology, I'm used to, the cornice is the part of the roof that extends out beyond the wall and is made of of several parts including the fascia (flat part on end of roof line) and the soffits (on the bottom part of the roof overhang). The best conceptual picture I could find of the fascia and soffits was at this Bob Villa site, but its terminology doesn't jive with what I'm used to. What he calls a cornice, I would call a frieze with the frieze, fascia, soffit all part of the cornice.
Picture of the house from the tree at the northeast corner of the lot. Most of the final grading has been done except for right up against the house.
Closeup of some of the cornice work. The front facing pieces are the fascia and the pieces on the bottom are the soffits.
Different view of the house with the cornice work done.
In preparation for the final grading, the added cinder blocks were sealed to limit water penetration. After that dries for a few days (read as next week) the back fill will be completed and graded.
A few trees got nicked with during the brick laying. The bark was trimmed (to limit insect infestation) and sealed. We had actually noticed this earlier and had trimmed the bark but hadn't sealed the trees as the folks we spoke with suggested that sealing actually retarded healing (sorta like a bandaid).
Trim getting ready.
The beadboard ceiling for the front porch.
Danny mostly finished off the basement steps. There will be a railing on the right, but this is about all we will do on the steps.
View of the house from the back. In addition to the cornice work, you can see where the Hardie plank has been added for the master bedroom bumpout and great room dormer. Those parts couldn't be brick (at least at a reasonable price) because there was no direct support for the weight (actually the weight only matters while the mortar is setting). An interesting note for me is I was spelling Hardie plank as "Hardy plank" for years until a few weeks ago when I saw it spelled out for the first time. Basically, it's concrete fiberboard and is "hardier" in all the ways that matter as compared to vinyl and also looks better (the last part is my opinion). However, it's actually named for its inventor - James Hardie.
Close up of the master bedroom bumpout.
In the not so distant future, there will be a concrete pad underneath the side (rear, really) door entry to the garage. To support the pad, there will be a couple concrete piers which has been prepped in the square holes visible in the picture above.
The drywall was finishing up on Thursday. I just thought it was cool to see someone working on stilts.
If you looked closely at the previous picture you would see that the drywall around the arch appears rounded. That's because we're using bullnose archway beads around the arch. While we've seen it in a few houses in Lynchburg, apparently the pieces needed for it (seen above) were not available in Lynchburg so they had to be brought in.
The first interior door was hung - between the garage and the rest of the house. The kitchen (and most of the rest of the main level) is to the left as you enter. That's Kate in the background in the bathroom and Preethi's head is poking out.
Virtually all of the ducts are now connnected. (This is the same room where the earlier War of the Worlds tripod attack occurred).
